Former minister Kisamba Mugerwa succumbs to COVID-19

Former minister Wilberforce Kisamba-Mugerwa has passed away after a brief battle with COVID-19.

Family sources noted that Mugerwa who was an agricultural economist, politician, academic, and chairman of the Uganda Microfinance Support Centre passed away on Thursday afternoon at Mulago National Referral Hospital after developing breathing complications.

Mugerwa's last public function was last week at Makerere University. Speaking during the second Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) policy seminar, he called for increased investment in research, extension, water for production, marketing, and processing.

Mugerwa also served as chairman of the National Planning Authority (NPA).

Mugerwa was born on July 5, 1945, in Bamunanika County, Luweero district, and attended Muyembe Tree Nursery School in Bamunanika and Wampeewo Junior Primary School. He then transferred to Mukono Bishop's Senior Secondary School where he completed his O-Level studies. He then completed his A-Level education at Kololo High School in Kololo, Kampala, graduating with High School Diploma.

In 1968 he was admitted at Makerere College, now Makerere University, where he studied agricultural economics. He obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree, followed by a Master of Science degree, and later was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in agricultural economics.

In 1980, he contested for Member of Parliament, on the Democratic Party (Uganda) political ticket, to represent Luweero South East was shot in the arm but still won the elections and served as a Member of Parliament between 1980 and 1985.

When the National Resistance Movement took over government in 1986, Kisamba Mugerwa served as the first elected LCV chairman for Luweero district from 1986 to 1991. He was then elected as Member of Parliament representing Bamunanika County in 1991.

He served different portfolios as a cabinet minister was once minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister, Minister of State for Finance and Economic Planning, and as the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries. He resigned to take up a job outside Uganda in 2004.

"I quit politics in 2004 as a satisfied man because my long time objective of participating in democratic elective politics had been realized. I craved to have a stable Uganda where we could freely engage in democratic elective politics," Mugerwa said.

At the time of his death, he was the Chancellor of Ndejje University, a private Christian university based in Luweero District.